Effective PR according to the laws of logistics: efficiency in achievement of marketing objectives

The question of optimizing costs and increasing efficiency of business processes is acute in PR-industry. After all, in the current context, in order to achieve marketing goals in the market any company should be customer-oriented, flexible and innovative. It requires well-established schemes and harmonious interaction of the entire agency team, which in turn appears in the value of PR-services and level of customer service. It is high time to think seriously about the logistics. Logistics is often understood very simplistic – like transportation of goods from a manufacturer to a distributor or from a warehouse to a consumer. Meanwhile, this economic science deals with planning, managing and controlling of material, information and financial resources movement in different systems. But is there logistics in such industries as PR? After all, there are no any "warehouses" or "goods"... Leading experts of Ukrainian PR-market believe that logistics schemes should be introduced in this sphere of business as well, as during the last year or two market conditions have been changed substantially: clients demand high quality, efficiency and intensity of work while reducing the cost of PR-services. CEO of strategic communications company Publicity Creating Valery Kureyko comments on: "Our Company pays much attention to PR-logistics services, develops best practices for information management and “delivery” of services to consumers. Therefore, our client is protected in terms of communication, today and tomorrow. " In fact, logistics exists in any project and any process. Therefore, in PR, along with customer orientation, logistic approach should be implemented into customer service at all stages: from order entry and gradual development of strategic program planning, organization of service, through processes of interaction of experts, contractors, partners, to presentation of a report and making suggestions to a client for future. The result for a client is that all these processes are transparent and efficient, and an agency adequately faces rapid changes and challenges of the market, actions of competitors. Market experts believe that there are a lot of opportunities to optimize the value of PR-services without compromising their effectiveness. For instance, that is development of strategic documents on promotion of a company. Moreover, as experts claim, a company saves up to 30% of its budget, since an optimal way to achieve that goal without extra costs is proposed in the very beginning. Savings are also possible in the course of organizing and management of events. For instance, Valery Kureyko states: "Where another agency needs three or four employees, we have one or two with experience and real skills. Similarly, we have raised PR-managers, who may equally great write news or release, article or note, obtain an interview, edit or translate a text. We have top consultants who develop strategies and at the same time are experienced coaches and managers. In other words, a professional is always confident ahead 2-3 employees of average skills, 5 and more assistants..." In PR-services provision mobility is essential: for instance, while organizing events, providing information on request of a journalist, conducting a consulting meeting for a client, budget determination... While providing of a PR-service, the terms of service which is to be provided are of paramount importance. Often, along with strategy development the first events should be already organized, projects should be run in line with the general concept, without compromising quality. Therefore, it is important for expert team to be able to submerge into the topics of the client completely and act up even cardinal change of tasks. Such results can be achieved by improvement of corporate schemes and standards, as well as ongoing staff training. While these trainings to accelerate decision-making, quality of communication with a customer, etc. are integrated into the workflow, the level of experts is continually rising to meet new market demands. For example, over the last ten years, speed of decision making, development of creative products, preparation of texts and activities has increased several times over. Today, a service should be provided to a customer promptly, efficiently and comprehensively. The crisis has added yet another, seemingly paradoxical requirement: quality PR-service should be affordable. Logistics helps in this matter as well.PR-logistics is especially important for remote customer service, such as for customers, located in regions. Level of professionalism and competent construction of work schemes help to provide the same quality services to customers from any region of Ukraine, irrespective of the city of a customer location. The level of communication channels development contributes to this issue, when the exchange of information and communication occurs at a distance, but in real time. The second factor is mobility, when an agency has staff ready to go to any place in Ukraine very promptly, and solve the required task – whether it is consulting, event management, training, or work with the media. Experts note that another condition of quality remote customer service is fast adaptation of the "capital" (and indeed international) standards to the realities of a region, in other words – customer orientation.“I can confirm – the situation in cities and regions is different, mentality is different as well. But there is a goal – to fulfill the customer needs, and we really do it. In addition, in 2010, we have implemented a rule on the optimal number of operating personnel in the company, which is called "+1". This means that in acute customer request there is always a free employee to communicate with a client and address the issues. There is always an expert who can go to a customer: by car, train or airplane. At this point in our company three client groups are created, and by the end of the year it is planned to increase their number to four. In total, there will work more than 15 professionals in the agency, which will increase the number of clients and projects in half. When one of the groups works in the field, a client can get a prompt answer, advice and assistance from experts who are in office. That is logistics either” – shares his experience Valery Kureyko. It turns out that with the help of competent PR-logistics almost all PR-services can be provided remotely: from the development of strategic products and consulting services to events management and writing of text materials, training, video interview... At the same time, experts note that a decision on remote services should be made by a client himself, in such a case personal contact between a client and the agency should also occur at least once a month. Thus, the main task of PR-logistics is maximal achievement of marketing purposes with minimal expenses in conditions of permanent changes on the market. Its mission is to ensure rapid and unhindered delivery of quality service without any information and other "jams" on its way, and the processes should move at given speed and direction. In order to demonstrate the similarities and differences between logistics of goods and services, it is possible to create a table-analogue, which will be useful to marketers and everyone who provides or orders PR-services. For instance, in case with goods, subsoil assets, agricultural products, etc will be raw commodities.., in the PR-services it will be time, knowledge, experience and connections of agencies, data surveys, research, media monitoring... "Utilities" in PR are articles, releases, events, and "finished products" are communication program and promotion complex. Kind of "warehouses" in the PR-industry are archive, case studies, methodologies, standards, schemes and algorithms, media base, etc. By analogy with delivery / shipment of goods, services "deliver" as well – by the channels of communication (information) or in person (at a meeting or event). If PR-services are provide professionally, they differ in “extended storage period”, i.e. the effect of activities lasts for a long time – from six months to several years.